Blind in one eye...can see out of the other....

It's true. I have lost the vision in my left eye! Did not expect that! It all started a couple weeks ago or so. I can't exactly pin-point the moment that I noticed; but suddenly I could see nothing out of that eye but a large silvery grey cloudy thing. Kind of how it looks when you fly through a cloud on an airplane and you try to look out the window.

I rationalized it for a few days; allergies, lack of sleep, shampoo in my eye. But it didn't go away. Finally I thought maybe I had an infection of some sort, so I got myself into the neighborhood insta-care. The insta-care doc looked at my eye for a minute asked a few questions about allergies and then suddenly left the room. I could hear him talking to a couple of people outside the door. (Do they honestly think you can't hear them????)I heard him say "she has a bubble in her eye" and then someone said "she needs to go to an ophthalmologist. He came back in the room, noticeably nervous and suggested I get to my eye doctor asap.

So the next day I went to my eye guy. I got dilated, took the exam and at first the doctor was stumped. Finally he came up with a diagnosis Ocular Neuropathy caused by radiation. Huh? He explained that basically he thinks damage from the radiation I had about 15 months ago has caused my pupil to be unresponsive. He booked a brain MRI for me the next day. I have yet to get the results but expect them next monday.

Of course the next thing I did was google. Yikes. Frightening. It's a rare side effect of brain radiation that usually makes it's appearance somewhere around the 12-18th month after receiving radiation. I'm at about 14 months. It can also happen to the other eye! Reading that gave me a cold chill of fear. Holy crap. How would I live, raise my son? I read that if the second eye is going to go, it usually follows the first in about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. But it can happen anytime. I figure I'm at the 2 week point now. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is test my eye. Any clouds? floatie things? no..whew.

Getting used to just seeing out of my right eye has been an adventure. I have run into a few walls when trying to walk and turn to the left and today when I drove through Wendy's to get my son a kid's meal, I had to turn to the left and get next to the window...no big deal. Except that I realized much too late that I was miles away from the window. Thought I was right next to it. And it bothered me while picking up a few things from the Walgreens and I couldn't see my son out of the corner of my eye when he walked on my left side. I think a few more days and I'll have the hang of it.

I'm not sure how to do it with no eyes. I keep telling myself that there are blind people living greatly productive lives all over the world. That helps a little. And I just keep staring at things, trying to memorize my sons face, the cat's stripes, the mountains. It's an amazing question...if you thought there was a chance you could lose your sight in the next three weeks what would you want to see? I decided to stare at my son, watch his facial expressions, moods, dances, everything.

There is only one treatment they use for this condition; hyperbolic oxygen. You know one of those things Micheal Jackson used to sleep in? It won't give me the sight back, but it can stabilize the vision I have. I looked at photos of it on google. You get shut in a space-age looking tube thing for up to 2 hours. Claustrophobia...yikes. I'm going to need a lot of valium.